In my previously issued U.S. Pat. No. 5,299,846, entitled: "Golf Club Ball Extractors," I describe a golf ball retrieval device that is fitted to the handle-grip end of a golf club, such as a putter, and which facilitates a golfer's seizure of a golf ball from the golf playing surface, without requiring the golfer to bend over and grasp the ball by hand. As pointed out in that patent, although physically bending over is customarily not a problem for a younger player, it may be strenuous and extremely difficult, if not an effectively impossible task, for an elderly person, someone with a back problem, arthritis, or a handicapped individual.
As diagrammatically illustrated at 1 in FIG. 1, the cylindrically shaped module of the invention described in my above-referenced patent is sized to be fitted to the hand-grip region 2 of a golf club 3, and is configured so that it may encompass and hold a golf ball, when the golf club is inverted and pressed downward on the ball. The module is provided with at least one hole 4 through its sidewall, so that the golfer may insert a finger through the hole and push the seized ball outwardly, thereby removing the captured ball from the device.
Now although my patented device provides the golfer, particularly an individual having limited physical ability, with a grip-mounted device that eliminates the need to bend over when retrieving a ball, I have concluded that it would be desirable to integrate the ball-seizure functionality of the device directly into the club head, without requiring the golfer to invert the club and then grasp the club in the vicinity of the club head, so that the handle-mounted device can be pressed down onto the ball. Indeed, it would be particularly useful if the golfer were able to grip a club, such as a putter, by its handle and retrieve the golf ball by means of the putter head.